Whales, Dolphins Experience Joy, Squeal with Delight

Originally designed to live on land, marine mammals are a diverse, charismatic group of animals that include more than 120 species.
The animals share key characteristics of land mammals. They have hair, breathe air, give birth to live young, which feed off mother's milk when young. They have warm bodies and usually thick blubber to keep their body temperatures high.
The bottlenose dolphin is probably the most widely recognized marine mammal, easily spotted just offshore from beaches around the world. Small groups of 20 or less can live in close proximity to shorelines, but groups living more offshore can reach several hundred.
Bottlenose dolphin calves stay with their mothers for up to six years, learning how to hunt and become good dolphin citizens. Full-grown dolphins reach eight to 12 feet in length and can weigh up to 1,430 pounds.
The bottlenose dolphin is protected in U.S. waters.

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View Caption+#2: Humpback Whale

What makes them "marine" depends on the animal. They either live mostly in the sea or, like polar bears, depend on the ocean for food.
The largest in the group are whales -- including humpback whales. These massive animals reach up to 50 feet in length and weigh up to 79,000 pounds. To maintain their weight, the animals feed on tons of krill and fish. They neared extinction due to whaling, but have recovered somewhat since a 1966 moratorium on whaling was introduced.

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View Caption+#3: Polar Bear

While polar bears live mostly on land or ice, they are excellent swimmers and have been known to swim up to 45 miles a day. The massive animals, weighing up to 1,500 pounds, hunt mostly seals.
In recent years, biologists have observed that the bears are swimming now more than ever as melting stretches the distances between Arctic ice flows. Because they depend on sea ice to hunt seals, the polar bear is considered threatened as global warming melts and thins ice in this region.

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View Caption+#4: Sea Otter

This member of the weasel family is also the smallest marine mammal, with females weighing about 60 pounds and males weighing up to 90 pounds.
They may be small, but they're also clever. They're the only marine mammals known to use tools. They use stones to break open clams and store food they gather in the folds of their armpits!
Another feature that sets them apart is their lack of blubber. These marine mammals depend mostly on their fur to stay warm. That feature makes them particularly vulnerable to oil spills, which can compromise their fur's insulating effect.

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View Caption+#5: Sea Walrus

Immediately recognizable by its long tusks and whiskers, the sea walrus is a hefty, flippered member of the Odobenidae family and is, in fact, the last living member of this group.
Since both the males and females have big tusks and not much for teeth, the animals feed by sucking up shellfish from the ocean floor.
So, just what are those tusks for? The longer they are (they grow to be up to four feet long in males), the higher an animal is ranked in the group. Males attack each other with their tusks to establish dominance.
The ivory appendages are also handy for poking holes in the winter ice and for helping the animals pull themselves out of the water.

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View Caption+#6: Manatee

Manatees, also known as sea cows, are gentle herbivores that live in marshy areas in tropical and subtropical waters. The average adult manatee can weigh up 1,200 pounds and is around 10 feet long.
Because of their slow metabolism, these animals can only survive in warm waters. Due to the unusually long, cold winter this year in part of the southeastern United States, populations of manatees throughout Florida were devastated.
During the day, manatees usually like to stay close to the surface. At night, manatees will often sleep about three to 10 feet below sea level. This is why these gentle animals are so often accidentally injured, maimed or killed by passing boats.

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View Caption+#7: Harbor Seal

Found up and down the North American coastlines, these marine mammals spend half of their lives swimming. Although they can reach up to six feet in length and weigh around 180 pounds, when on land and in plain sight harbor seals may not be easy to spot.
Their spotted brown or tan fur allows harbor seals to blend in with sand and rocks. Unlike their very vocal relatives -- sea lions and elephant seals -- harbor seals are quiet creatures that make little noise.
They like to hang out on beaches, sand bars and rocks during low tide to bask in the sun and sleep, but they never go far from the water. At the slightest sign of danger, they will quickly slip back under the waves. These expert swimmers have been known to plunge to depths of more than 1,600 feet and stay underwater up to 28 minutes.

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Dolphins and whales squeal after pleasant moments, researchers noticed long ago, such as receiving a tasty fish treat. A new study supports that these happy sounds are genuine expressions of delight.

The discovery, published in The Journal of Experimental Biology, not only helps to explain the meaning of these sounds but also provides evidence that dolphins and whales experience joy.

“We think we have demonstrated that (the squeal) has emotional content,” said lead author Sam Ridgway, president of the National Marine Mammal Foundation.

When human children — and some adults — squeal out of happiness there’s a 100–200 millisecond delay from the time of the event and the happy sound. That’s because the event prompts the release of a compound called dopamine in the brain.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers. Once dopamine is released, a person usually feels good and may get a boost of self-confidence.

Ridgway wondered if a comparable dopamine release delay — and the same brain reward process — happens in dolphins and whales.

Delving back through decades of recorded experiments, he and his colleagues examined vocalizations of beluga whales and dolphins that had been trained to associate a whistle or buzzer sound with a food reward. Before long, the marine mammals seemed to become happy after just hearing the sound, with or without the food.

Measuring the time between the sound and the marine mammals’ squeal determined that it was as expected, around 200 milliseconds on average.

“The dolphins take an average of 151 milliseconds extra time for this release, and with the belugas … it’s about a 250 millisecond delay,” he said.